Computer systems typically make large amounts of information available to their users. Various approaches have also been used in aiding the users in accessing the pieces of information. A common way of making information available is to present a representation thereof on a display device. The information representation may automatically appear upon the user initiating the system, or the user may cause it to be presented by querying the system for information, to name just two examples.
Many systems also provide functions that allow a user to cause the presentation of one information representation to follow immediately upon the presentation of another information representation—that is, to navigate from one representation to another. Sometimes this navigation is provided by hyperlinking, wherein the address of the second representation is stored so that when the user clicks on the link, the address is used for locating the other information representation so that it can be displayed.
However, using the explicit address of the other representation may limit the flexibility of the system. For example, if the address is expected to change over time the link may become useless unless it is updated with the new information. Another example is that the address may not be known at a time when it is desirable to create the navigation function.
For these and other reasons, other approaches to navigation have been suggested. For example, products from SAP AG in Walldorf (Baden), Germany, have introduced a portal that, among other features, can provide navigation to an object using the object type and an object identifier. This solution is sometimes referred to as object-based navigation and provides that the link to the object need not specify the exact location of the object; rather, the object type and identifier are sufficient for the portal to locate the object such that its representation can be displayed. Nevertheless, it may be a cumbersome procedure to create the link and to determine what information the portal will need for the navigation and where to obtain that information when the link is being created.